Royal Botanical Garden’s Iris Collection begins move to Hendrie Park

The Royal Botanical Garden’s (RBG) world-famous Iris Collection is on the move to a new permanent home at Hendrie Park.

The collection hosts over 960 types of iris blooms and was originally planted in 1947 focusing on tall bearded iris — the name Iris deriving from Greek meaning rainbow.

To better preserve the plants and display them more prominently, the collection is being moved to a bigger space across the road from the RBG Centre in Burlington.

Gardening staff are in the process of replanting the collection, which includes several species of Iris, including the miniature bearded, border bearded, Siberian and dwarf bearded.

The relocation project began last summer and is part of a broader transformation of Laking Garden’s perennial collections.

“We’re going to have around 1,100 cultivars in here, each one unique, and some that are only here,” said Jon Peter, the Director of Horticulture at the RBG. “They’re nowhere else — we can’t find them anywhere else on the planet, so they’re unique to RBG, and to preserve those through time is quite a story.”

The RBG is not expecting many blooms from the irises this year, but expects to have many more in the coming years.

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